Earth

Posts taggedwith Earth

Yesterday NASA published a new photograph taken on July 19, 2013, by a wide-angle camera on the Cassini spacecraft that shows a view of Earth from the dark side of Saturn. In the photo Earth is 898 million miles away and the moon appears as just a tiny protrusion off to the right (you might need to see it up close). According to NASA this is only the third time that Earth has ever been photographed from the outer solar system.

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Sydney-based artist Catherine Nelson refers to herself as a painter with a camera, in that she doesn’t see the world as a photographer does but instead uses photos as a medium with which she creates these fantastic miniature worlds. Each work is comprised of hundreds of photographs which she digitally stitches together, drawing from an extensive background in visual special effects having worked on such films as Moulin Rouge, Harry Potter and 300. Of her work Nelson says:

When I embraced the medium of photography, I felt that taking a picture that represented only what was within the frame of the lens wasn’t expressing my personal and inner experience of the world around me. With the eye and training of a painter and with years of experience behind me in film visual effects, I began to take my photos to another level. The ‘Future Memories’ series comprises of 20 floating worlds, meticulously composed with thousands of assembled details. Visual poetry, nature photography and digital techniques blend together to give shape to these transcendental landscapes. The result is a contemporary pictorial mythology that subtly reminds the viewer of a profound truth: that it is in the flourishing variety of the local that the fate of the world resides.

Although the pieces are quite gorgeous to look at right here on Colossal, it’s hard to convey the resolution and scale of each piece which measures about 40×40″ (100x100cm), a level of detail that requires Nelson to spend nearly a month on each piece. It was my assumption based on the perspective and detail that some of these works must be somehow partially rendered in 3D, however she assured me via email that this is not the case. Though she uses digital editing to assemble them, they are almost purely based in photography. Incredible.

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In this fascinating short video titled Chemin Vert, Rome-based artist Giacomo Miceli takes you on a fascinating road trip through a warped version of Earth known as a polargraphic projection, that spans five continents and four seasons using footage extracted from Google Street View. Via Miceli’s website:

Chemin Vert is the result of a slow process of maturation spanning a few years. Different techniques were employed in the beginning, involving long trips on the road across Europe while shooting time lapse videos on the go. Back then the scope of the project was substantially different, concentrating more on the augmentation (as in augmented-reality) of landscapes. At a certain point the accent was moved on the aesthetic qualities of the landscapes themselves and on the immersive factor. In the final version of Chemin Vert the original footage comes from Google Street View, without which this project wouldn’t have been possible.

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NASA has just published what it calls the “most amazing highest resolution image of Earth ever”, dubbed Blue Marble. The 64-megapixel image weighing in at 8000×8000 pixels is actually a composite photograph taken on January 4th of this year using a number of captures stitched together from NASA’s Earth-observing satellite Suomi NPP. Make sure to see this sucker full size to really appreciate the details. (via gizmodo via nick ulivieri)

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I’m loving these liquid planets by German photographer Markus Reugels. Using large satellite photos as a backdrop and a high speed camera he captures the background’s refraction through water drops. The perfectly timed shots result in these spherical representations of the Earth, Moon and Jupiter. See much more of his work here and also here. Thanks Markus for sharing your work with Colossal!